Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

I want to ask about the Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 which seeks to amend the Education Act 1998 which provides for children with special needs, among other things. We hear there are to be no more teachers for special needs children because the European Union and the IMF demand it. We hear this morning from the enterprise Minister, promising in the legislation we have just heard about, to restore the minimum wage, a poverty wage, for 60,000 workers but now making that legislation conditional on 250,000 extremely low-paid other workers being hammered by having their anti-social allowances taken from them, for example, because the EU-IMF demands it.

What is the point in asking about legislation when the Tánaiste represents a Government that is nothing more than a ventriloquist's dummy for the EU-IMF?

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